1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to disk drives. More particularly, the present invention relates to a disk drive for receiving setup data in a self monitoring analysis and reporting technology (SMART) command.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional disk drives comprise a sector of configuration parameters used to configure the operating mode when powered on. The configuration parameters are used to configure, for example, the read/write channel, the cache system, and the error recovery system. The configuration parameters are generally inaccessible from a host computer due to the limitations of its operating system, such as a Microsoft Windows operating system and associated drivers.
A utility has been disclosed for configuring a write-verify error recovery operation from the host computer. However, this utility can only be executed after the host computer is “clean” booted from a floppy disk so that the Microsoft Windows drivers are not installed. After running the utility to configure the write-verify operation, the host computer is rebooted into the Microsoft Windows operating system to resume normal operation.
Rebooting the host computer from a floppy in order to reconfigure a disk drive is undesirable since it precludes running the configuration utility from the more user friendly and familiar Microsoft Windows operating environment. In addition, it may be desirable to run the configuration utility from an Internet web page using an Internet browser program running under a Microsoft Windows operating environment. Still further, it may be desirable to reconfigure the disk drive on-the-fly relative to the type of application program running, or the type of data being manipulated. For example, it may be desirable to configure the error recovery system less stringently when storing Internet web pages in a browser's cache as opposed to storing more critical word processing or accounting documents.
There is, therefore, a need to reconfigure a disk drive in the field from a Microsoft Windows operating system without having to reboot the host computer.